Fall 2019 Meeting Minutes

8/31/2019

Fall Soft Court Meeting Minutes
August 27, 2019

The Women’s SoftCourt League of Birmingham held the fall meeting at the Country Club of Birmingham on August 27, 2019 at 9:30am. All club representatives were present except Mountain Brook Club and Lake Cyrus. All level coordinators were present except 4.0. There were 24 members in attendance including officers.

President, LaVonda Keel, welcomed everyone and called the meeting to order. After blessing the food, LaVonda introduced the officers and level coordinators. Kelly Miles, Secretary, called roll and asked for a motion to approve the minutes from the spring meeting as posted on the website. Motion made to accept minutes by Bernadine Faulkner, seconded by Betty Austin and approved.

In the absence of Melody Debardeleben, Treasurer, LaVonda presented the financial report. Since the Spring, we began the season at @$12,000 and will end at @$12,000. We made a $3,000 donation to LETT. We intend to have expenses ranging between $2,000-$3,000 to update the website to make it more mobile-friendly. The site will be down after the conclusion of the fall season for these updates to be made. Motion to approve the Treasurer’s report was made by Meredith Vinson, seconded by De Carroll and approved.

LaVonda announce the winners and runners up for the spring season. Prize for first place was a WSL large insulated tote and the prize for second place was a WSL insulated wine bag.

Vice President Meredith Vinson reported that 104 teams were scheduled for the fall league. The schedules are now final. The season will begin the Tuesday after Labor Day, September 3, 2019. Additional rule books were distributed to each club based on their new captain count. A limited few are still available from Kelly Miles and the league rules in PDF format are on the website. There was some additional discussion regarding the issue of changing the format of Softcourt matches. LaVonda indicated the board would be willing to address a straightforward proposal on how to modify the current rules of play. Needs to be submitted in writing and be a proposal that could be voted on. This would need to be submitted prior to the spring meeting for consideration at the next meeting.

Betty Austin from the Susan Briggs tournament gave the following update:
• Tournament was held at Inverness Country Club this year.
• 72 people played in the tournament.
• Next year they will hold the tournament in the same time frame. The feeling is that this works better than mid-October when teams were using that bye week for makeup matches.
• Tournament is looking at making the schedule a full 3 days so that people don’t have to play 2 matches in one day (particularly due to the heat of the new time of year).
• They are looking for more people to help run the tournament. It is a lot of work for 3 people.

LaVonda discussed the sympathy card available to be signed for the Underwood family. Jan Underwood was an extremely active tennis member and passed away last week. LaVonda wanted the family to have the condolences of the Softcourt community.

LaVonda directed everyone to review the stat winners from the spring season and those approved for move down. 3 stat winners from spring have opted to remain at their current level and per Softcourt rules, need to be listed on 1st court on their strength roster. 2 people on the move down requests are required to play 1st court based on the circumstances of their move down. Other move downs, per Softcourt rules, need to be properly placed on their strength rosters. Level Coordinators and club reps were reminded to make sure players were playing at the correct level. They should be monitoring who has gotten letters and what level and position they are playing at. If there is an issue with players at the wrong level, opposing captain should file a grievance. If the ethics board determines that this is the case, matches would be vacated.

LaVonda reminded everyone that the strength roster deadline is midnight before the first match even if the first week is a bye. Strongly encouraged captains to do this early and not wait until the night before. This does not allow level coordinators time to help if there are any issues. Everyone on the team roster must be on the strength roster, every court must have players listed on them (minimum of 2 per doubles court.) Match day helper sheets are in the packet.

LaVonda discussed rule book updates for spring which revolve around weather issues. Lightning policy will be added. If there is lightning in the area, particularly when a pro/club personnel tell players to leave the courts- leave the courts. This is an obvious safety issue. Inclement weather policy will be clarified as follows:
Softcourt has a 40 degrees weather rule. If courts are playable but it is not 40* and will not be 40* by 10AM- EITHER captain can opt for a reschedule. If it will be 40* by 10, play should be delayed until 10 and then play can begin. If BOTH captains agree to play, it is not required to reschedule if the temperature is under 40* and courts are playable.

Door prizes were awarded and the meeting was adjourned at 10:45am.

Respectfully submitted,
Kelly Miles, Secretary